Capitol Notes: Sunshine Law could use clarity at Capitol

Sunshine Week — a few days to celebrate and advocate openness in government — just ended. It is a favorite week for journalists.

I spent a few minutes on Thursday chatting with Jean Maneke about Missouri's Sunshine Law. Maneke is an attorney for the Missouri Press Association. She said Missouri has a fairly strong law.

When the law works well, it works very well, Maneke said.

She said a drawback to the law is that enforcement can be difficult. The Missouri attorney general has the task of enforcing the law but also acts as the lead attorney for the state. The tension between the two roles is easy to see.

The biggest drawback I see personally is the law's fuzzy relationship to the General Assembly.

The Sunshine Law is designed to apply to public governmental bodies. The General Assembly certainly is a public governmental body, but after that it gets more complicated. Whether individual legislators count as a public body has not been addressed extensively by the courts.

It can be hard to successfully request records from an individual lawmaker. Records created using state computers or email residing on state servers may be accessible, Maneke said, but try to get a record from a personal computer and the situation becomes hazy.

House Bill 1832, sponsored by Rep. John Mayfield, D-Independence, would specify that the Sunshine Law also applies to individual lawmakers. It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, but a public hearing on the bill has not yet been scheduled.

Meetings are a little bit more clear cut. Lawmakers typically post notice of committee meetings 24 hours in advance as required by the Sunshine Law. Yet, in at least one committee — Senate General Laws — those who wish to video-record a meeting have had to give 24 hours notice to the chairman.

Requiring 24-hour notice of intent to video-record is not a requirement that is explicitly allowed under the Sunshine Law. The law does allow guidelines to be established to prevent disruption of the meeting, though it says nothing about advance notice.

Even in this circumstance the law's application to legislators is fuzzy because the Missouri state constitution allows the General Assembly to set its own rules and procedures. That power presumably includes the ability to regulate recording at meetings.

There may not yet be perfect clarity for lawmakers, press and citizens about what Sunshine requirements the General Assembly does and does not have to follow, but history shows openness in government has been improving.

In a February column, Phill Brooks, who has been covering the Missouri capital for decades, wrote that when he first started reporters were banned from even attending committee votes.

Brooks' observation helps puts things in perspective. When it comes to holding those who wield power accountable, a lot of progress had been made. But there's always more that can be done.

Jonathan Shorman is the News-Leader's statehouse reporter. Capitol Notes is his column about state and local politics.